A lot has happened in the Indian Animation/VFX Industry over the last decade, and more so in the last few years, which has been exciting. The most exciting part is the growth of domestic animation Industry in India. In 2001, we had only one kids channel, while today we have over 18 TV networks dedicated to kids.
Inspite of India having over 430 million kids, still the amount of content produced for kids has been abysmally low. Currently only 13per cent of the content shown in India is made in India, while 42 per cent comes from USA and 17 per cent from Japan. Over the past 15 years India has seen its share of IPs, and the most successful properties being Chhota Bheem and more recently Motu Patlu.
While the domestic Industry has been doing decently well on the TV front, we are yet to see the potential when it comes to making animation films for Bollywood. So far over a dozen films have been released with only a few films doing well at the box office. Its not that the potential is not there, but I think we need to make multiple attempts at the box office in order to crack the formula for making a blockbuster animated film.
India is a vast market and there is space for animation content across platforms, we just have to identify the need and cater accordingly. Cinema is an area where I feel there is a lacuna. While we have managed to secure a firm position on TV as an industry, a lot more can be done to explore theatrical releases. As a company we are working towards scaling up our production capabilities. We have had reasonable success at the box office with two Chhota Bheem theatrical films, we are now on the verge of releasing our third, titled Chhota Bheem-Himalayan Adventure in January.
By far, I feel that this is the best film that we have produced both in terms of technical and storyline. We are committed towards creating theatrical content and we believe that Indian animated content can definitely compete with its global counterpart, so we should strive to give our kids exposure to Indian content because it is clearly more relatable. I think the day is not far away, when Animated films made in India would scale global peaks.
by Rajiv Chilaka, creator, Chhota Bheem